Anything for You - Afterlife
by janethenighthunter
Summary: Background related to "Saw", "The Hunger Games". Title inspired by the song "Anything for You" by EVANESCENCE. The young intern Rue falls in love with her boss Federica. Soon after, she is forced to enter a competition for life and death, aiming to save herself and Federica. She makes it out as the only person alive but is never the same again... This is the "AFY" afterlife...
1. Chapter 1

**_Description:_**

 _Fanfiction based on: "Saw", "The Hunger Games". (I actually came up with it before the Hunger Games, but it's a good reference for you to imagine what has happened before. I can give credit to the Hunger Games for the name Rue.) This relates to the background of this story. What is happening right know in the story is my own idea. (- The "Afterlife")  
_

 _The title of this story is inspired by the song "Anything for You" by the amazing band EVANESCENCE._

 _The cover pic of this story (which is also my avatar :3 ) shows Rue. The writing on it says "Society gives me shit". I leave this to your own interpretation but it basically has to do with society's way of dealing with "out of normal". Sorry guys, took me all that effort to make the pic and then FF wouldn't upload it in its entire size - only a downsized version of it where some letters were cut off._

 _Keywords: Darkness, suicidal, emo, gay romance_

 _THIS STORY IS NOT FUNNY! Although I wish you fun reading it, please consider not reading it if you get saddened or depressed easily. BUT, there's one thing for sure, as hopeless as things can sometimes be... Every cloud has a silver lining. I know 'cause I've been there, too  
_

 _ **What happened previously:** _

_During an internship in a multinational company, the young student Rue falls in love with her boss Federica. Unluckily for Rue, Federica is years older, happily married and not interested in girls. Misunderstood by her parents and unhappy from her unreturned feelings, she anonymously starts blogging about her situation in a dubious online community. Shortly after, she is kidnapped and forced to join a competition called "Anything for You" that is broadcast online all over the world. The goal is to be the last person alive and win the competition. If she fails, Federica has to die._

 _Rue masters the competition and saves Federica. However, she is unable to save two of her friends, who die. Her forced participation in the "Anything for You" show physically and emotionally destroys her. To make it through the show, she has to sacrifice parts of her humanity and empathy. Although she survives, her life after the show is anything but nice. Two years later, Rue gives a speech at the annual "Survivor's Conference" in Rome, Italy, where she makes an unexpected encounter..._

"

Ladies and Gentlemen... let me tell you something. First things first – I really don't wanna be here tonight. Speaking in front of a large audience that expects me to come up with some sort of a hero story, which I am, unfortunately, incapable of. I know that, surprisingly, a have a few supporters among you. Otherwise I wouldn't have been invited to speak tonight, right? But there's also a bunch of haters around, I guess… I totally understand you guys. The truth is, I count myself to the haters.

But let's get back to business, 'cause this is all tonight is about for me. I assume that you are aware of those ridiculously detailed insights I've been sharing on my countless social media accounts and throughout my print publications. They are insights into a life I long to forget more than anything else. Thinking about my past hurts me, each and every single day. It feels like suffocation. It takes my breath away and makes me wanna sleep and never wake up again. I've become so tired of it all, really. You know, of everything. This life, after all. Thinking about the mistakes I've made and that I keep making, over and over again. To be honest, all I do this for tonight is the money. I'm telling you this and I have been telling you this frankly and sincerely all the time. I have to earn my living, or else I would just die. A thought that is not as unpleasant as it should probably be, but I don't wanna ruin all my therapist's work. He gets well-paid by my manager to keep me alive. No, seriously, I've got my reasons.

Why doesn't she just do something else, you might wonder? I can tell you, I've tried everything. Really. But think twice. Who in this fucking brutal world would give the AFY survivor a job?

There's not much fun in listening to my story. I'd love to get it over with quickly, so we can all go home or listen to some more nice and cosy stories like the one of the girl who risked her life and got her arm burned when rescuing her little brother from a fire. No offense, I'm impressed and you've got all my due respect. I wish I could be that great of a person!

Let me introduce you to my manager Ron. No matter what you might have heard or will hear in the next few minutes from me, he's a good guy. He's honest, never plays games. Of course he uses me as his cash cow. Apparently, I'm a reasonably good revenue source. I don't blame him. In fact, the opposite applies. Ron never lies to me. I know that the majority of my earnings flow into his pockets, and he's very open about it. I am aware that he'll turn his back on me as soon as I lose my unexplainable popularity. He made that very clear to me. It's a mad and manipulative world but he's one of the few reliable constants in my life. Cheers to Ron!

I brought Ron into play because he urgently asked me to prepare a speech of at least thirty minutes, so I could satisfy your never-ending hunger for dramatic fates and unhappy endings. To be perfectly honest, I don't feel like looking back at all that crap but the money is alright. Survivor's Conference is fucking posh, I guess. Sorry for swearing all the time, by the way. As you guys are as fucking posh as I just said, I should probably mind my language. I guess y'all are scared as hell by the way I've changed during these two years since my infamous rise to a global celebrity. Fall is probably the more suitable word to describe it, though. Ever since I first appeared on the realest and scariest show in the history of video broadcasting, I have constantly fallen. This very moment, I'm falling. There's voices in my head telling me to die.

When I woke up at a hospital somewhere in South East Asia, with a huge scar all over my waist and a fingertip less, I felt as lonely as I had never felt in my life. I had a scary feeling of there being no going back. And it should turn out that I was right.

When getting back to my parents, to the house I used to call home, everything had changed. I couldn't even look my parents in the eye. All of a sudden, they would start crying. My little sister wouldn't speak a single word to me. Instead, she started cutting her wrist, imitating what she had seen me do on the show. There was dead silence all over the place. It destroyed me. All the weight laying on my shoulders seemed to drag me down into a black hole that was so deep I couldn't even guess where, or if, it had a bottom. I sure as hell wanted to crash on that bottom. At some point, I just couldn't take it anymore? As I started confronting my parents, they wouldn't fight back. I realised that they just didn't love me anymore. I was no longer their daughter.

I have done things that are so cruel that they are not worth being talked about. All for a woman who wouldn't even show up once in these two years to give me any sign of acknowledgement for saving her life over and over again. I don't care that much about my personal sacrifices. Losing my fingertip and my mental sanity is not worth a mention. However, two of my friends and many other innocent people died. Every day I keep thinking that I could have saved two lives worthier of being saved than my own. It's kinda sad that she doesn't seem to see this. Maybe she puts all the blame for how it all turned out on me, which she's perfectly entitled to. But if it hadn't been to save her, they could still be alive.

It might seem cruel, after all I've been through just for her, but I decided to get over her. She's not my all anymore. She's just another bad decision in my life, and after her, there were many more to come. Let me tell you a little more about them because my manager obviously expects me to. It wasn't my choice, you know. Well, it was, in some way, I guess. I hired him, and he's done a good job at capitalising on my life so far. Sorry, talking too much. Beating about the bush. I should just get it over with.

Uhm… it's very hard, you know. After waking up that day in the hospital, silently screaming to God why He hadn't just let me die, and after days and days of slowly getting better, and after these things that all turned wrong between me and my parents, I was a wreck. I moved out from my parents' house. The first months were like hell. I had a whole lot of interviews, press appointments, stuff like that. Making you remember the things you want to forget so badly all day long. Making you speak of them. Now that I'm speaking here, I find it hard and mostly sad to believe that I haven't moved from that point in those two years. Anyway, I had no place to stay, and interest in my story declined soon when I announced that I could no longer bear to talk about it. I needed a new job.

Of course, no one would employ me. I basically made a fool out of myself, knocking on every company's door and pitching myself with my oh-so brilliant degree. I didn't get a single invitation for a job interview. After weeks and weeks of setbacks, I started doing drugs. Not the harmless ones. Not alcohol, weed… I was soon done with overdoing the booze. It just didn't make me numb enough. So I went for the really nasty shit. Believe me, you don't wanna hear that part. And if you still don't feel like listening to my advice, get your hands on a copy of my latest book. Don't say I didn't warn you – it comes with a price that goes beyond money. You probably won't be able to sleep well at night anymore.

I needed to fund my drug abuse, so I started… let's call it, connecting with the right people who would support me without asking questions. Not the usual guys. They would give you 100 bucks and you gotta do some pretty nasty things, too. It's all gross. It was the excentric upper class that I managed to attract to my services. Some tried to buy my mind, too, but I always drew clear lines. Once, one of these millionaires tried to pretend he had feelings for me. I told him off. I said, we both know what this is about, and it's about anything but love. He admitted I was right. That's my philosophy: No lies. Be real or get the hell away from me. You can tell me anything, no matter if it hurts me. Nothing hurts as badly as being comforted with hypocrisy and lies. It's a matter of respect when people actually find the courage to look me in the eye and tell me what they really think. Don't try to spare me – I can take it.

After all of these things happening, all of a sudden I moved into the focus of the press again. They would stay on my trail all night long just to get that one really shocking photo of me totally stoned under that sixty year-old CEO in his car, while his oh-so conservative wife was videotaping. I'm not making this up, guys. This world is ugly. I think I've said enough. I don't wanna speak about this again. I feel dirty and broken. Even the thought of my first year after "Anything for You" makes me wanna vomit my guts out.

At some point, my parents intervened. It seems as if they did still care about me, after all. I was put into the closed psychiatry. They paid for my therapist sessions and stuff. I should be grateful, but all I feel is emptiness inside me. During all these months, they didn't come to see me once. I could have used some love. Or at least someone who still liked me a little bit. I've been through a fuckload of crap no one should ever even have to watch, and I still have miles to go before I can begin to think about what "normality" could mean for someone like me, and how I could ever possibly reach out for it. I keep wondering why my life has turned out this way. Was it destiny? Was I predestined to become the person I am, with all my social issues, that never-ending need for love that will eventually kill me?

After I got out, I met Ron. I met him by chance in a café in London. After finally being released, I decided that I urgently needed to leave the country. There was nothing left for me there but pain and bad memories. So I moved to the UK and settled down in London. I had no idea what to do and where to go. I needed a home and a job to pay back all the money my parents had wasted on me. It's just like, I don't wanna owe them. We've gone our separate ways now, and that's alright. I guess it's much easier for them without me. Wherever I go, I keep turning into a burden for everyone around sooner or later.

I've been thinking that perhaps, my time has just come. But then I keep getting back to the point where I tell myself, if I go now, others have died for nothing. They could have lived, but they died so I could live. So I have no choice but to keep going with this life. A life that will never be filled with love. I could never open up to love after all I've done. My shrink and Ron keep telling me that all these deaths were not my fault. That I should start forgiving myself and accepting that I did the right thing given the circumstances. But how could this ever have been the right thing to do?

In that very moment that I decided to die for Federica,…"

I suddenly stocked when that name left my lips. There was something in the air, and a bad feeling was creeping up insight me. I couldn't help but scan the audience for a face I knew better than it was good for me. The thought of having seen something – or someone – filled me with anxiety, and as I moved my view across the room, I suddenly knew very clearly that I was doomed.

There she was. Sitting there, pretty as never before, watching me speak with a petrified expression on her beautiful face. Surely, my speech was a lot for her to take tonight. In that moment, I got struck by the feeling that all my progress during the last months, or even years, had vanished in an instant. Overwhelmed by this realisation, I was no longer to breathe. I was as drawn to and dependent on Federica as on the very first day. Silence settled in the large hall. My audience fixated me with intrigued looks in their eyes.

 **TBC... What will happen after Rue sees Federica? Will she fall for her again? Or will she stay strong and adhere to her decision to get over Federica?**


	2. Chapter 2

**What happened in the previous chapter:**

 _Two years after "Anything for You", Rue speaks at the annual Survivors' Conference, telling the audience about her miserable life after the show. All of a sudden, she sees Federica, the woman she went through all of this for, in the audience. Overwhelmed by the shock of encountering Federica, Rue freezes and interrupts her speech. But the show must go on... How will she deal with the situation?_

 ** _This chapter is not yet completed but feel free to start reading :) It will be updated regularly._**

Slowly but surely, a nauseous feeling started to evolve in my stomach. I just felt it all fall on me at once. All these feelings that I had tried to fight so hard jumped right back at me. Like a tidal wave, Federica's presence struck me and nailed me to the ground. Indeed, my legs gave way and I almost fell. Starting to hyperventilate, I stepped back from the microphone and stumbled off the podium. With a concerned look in his eyes, Ron stepped by my side and caught me before I hit the ground.

"What's wrong?," he whispered, nervousness all over his face. "Don't you feel good? What is it? I haven't seen you this upset in a while."

 _She's here!,_ I tried to answer, but no sound managed to pass my lips. I felt like my entire body had fallen into some sort of petrified shock state.

"Come on, girl. You can do it," Ron tried to encourage me, while still looking quite puzzled, since I was unable to give him the explanation he was waiting for. He gently touched my arm, trying to calm me down. Unprepared for his touch, I trembled and pulled away. Losing my balance, I was no longer able to keep up my façade and fell to the ground. My knee hit the floor first, causing a gross cracking sound. The audience reacted with an astonished outcry.

"Okay, maybe we should take a little break", Ron murmured scattily. He stepped on the podium and announced that I needed a little rest for ten minutes. I was devastated. Falling in front of _her_ like a little child who did not know how to walk in heels was the last thing I had wanted to happen. Full of shame, I felt my blood shoot into my face. I could just hope that my dark skin tone enabled this embarrassment to go unnoticed. It was bad enough already. I had been the most awaited speaker of the evening, but now I would probably go down in the history of this event as the great ridicule of the 6th Annual Survivors' Conference.

Gathering my last remains of pride together from the farthest dusty corner of my little brain, I got up and stalked my way to the bathroom, well aware that I probably looked like a clumsy idiot. Glad that I did not see anyone else in the bathroom, I ran into it and slammed the door behind me. Exhausted and panting like hell, I made my way to one of the mirrors to check on my looks. I was pretty sure that I looked like a zombie right now. At least I felt as if I had died during the last few minutes. But I was still walking – so I had to be undead, see?

On the other hand, I couldn't have felt more alive. A feeling of being undead would at least have gone along with the emotional numbness I had tried to bring to perfection during the last year. I had eventually been pretty good at it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who is scared of showing emotions. I used to like emotions. Well, before "Anything for You" happened, of course. After that, I started to hate them. They just hurt me more deeply than any of the physical pain I had put my body through had ever been capable of. In fact, my unreturned love for Federica felt like a razor blade stuck in my mind, if you want. Or maybe in my gut right now, because I suddenly started to feel so sick that I had to throw up. Gladly, there were quite a few vacant toilet stalls.

 _Come on, girl, you can do it,_ Ron's voice echoed in my head. It was causing me a terrible headache. I felt like shit. But he was not the one to tell me what I could do. He knew nothing. Still, he always pretended to know what was good for me. In fact, he had kept an important piece of information from me. Why, for God's sake, had Federica turned up here? Apart from the question what she wanted here after all these years I wondered why I hadn't known about it. Hadn't Ron been able to get his hands on the guest list for tonight? And hadn't he reviewed it carefully in advance before consenting to my speech at this event? He usually did quite a lot to protect me from harm or from negative headlines in the press. That was what he got his commission for. So why the fucking hell hadn't he warned me? If I was to find out that he known about Federica's attendance and kept this information secret from me, he would be sacked before he could even begin to apologise. Be real or get lost.

But all of these thoughts were just meant as a distraction from what really mattered. What I actually had to be worried about was how to deal with the situation, and how to keep my uprising emotions calm. I had been so good at suppressing them, but now I felt their attempts to break out. _Federica? What's she doing here? Is she here to see me? Does she feel sorry? Or does she even…_ No, I shouldn't even think about it. That went too far. Stay realistic, or else you will get hurt for sure. I could guarantee that to myself. And I was not only going to get a little hurt, but I was going to fall deep. And this time I didn't know whether I was going to find the strength to get up again.

Trying to keep up distracting myself, I checked my look in the mirror. My make-up was still fine, luckily. It was no surprise, since I had managed not to cry so far, but it still reassured me a bit. However, under all that make-up, I looked pretty fucked up, if I may say it that way. My face had that greenish tone of being really sick, my eyes were red (Why? I hadn't even cried yet) and my hands were shaking all the way. I barely succeeded in opening the tap to let some cool water flow over my wrist that screamed for another cut. I could only pray that this skill would help. It usually did, but this time I was not that sure.

"You could be pretty," Ron had told me once, "If you weren't always pulling that miserable face." I didn't hate him for that comment. I knew how it was with me. A few years ago, I would have died to be in the shape I was in now. People on the streets sometimes mixed me up with Rihanna, until they realised that I was a lot skinnier or until I told them who I really was in order to get rid of them. It usually worked. So I could have called myself lucky. However, a few years ago, my eyes hadn't stared at me from a mirror with that hard expression, full of disgust and self-hatred. No matter how hard tried, I would never be good enough for myself again. And that was because of what I had done.

And I had done it all for her. In that second, my hate for myself turned against Federica. It was all her fault! Of course, her sexiness, cuteness, kindness and all of the other amazing characteristics that she had exhibited before it had all happened, were not her fault. I couldn't blame her for being the person she had been. And she hadn't only been a good person. She had also been superficial, career-oriented and unreliable. But no, I didn't blame her at all. I had thought about it over and over, on my own, with my therapist, with Ron, and even with the strangers who had paid to spend a few hours of their nights with me. What I actually blamed her for, was who she was now.

After the end of "Anything for You", I had never seen Federica again. I had killed and almost died for her, so I was hoping that she would at least come to see me and thank me. And maybe – as I secretly hoped – finally even love me. After all, I had truly given anything for her. I remembered waking up in that hospital shortly after the end of the show and naively nurturing my hopes for a future with Federica, while I was spending my days waiting to get better so that I could finally see visitors. But when I was eventually ready, only my parents were there, and they seemed to have changed. From the moment I had seen them that day until the last time I had seen them – which was, admittedly, quite some time ago – they had behaved in a weird way, distant and even insecure while I was around. They just felt uncomfortable in my presence.

At first, I did not understand. I was badly injured and had barely survived. I had proven courage and the ability to push my own limits to infinite when it came to saving someone I loved. Was it because of my mother's Christian education, I wondered. I was aware that in Jamaica, homosexuality was not exactly tolerated. Of course, I had thought about that. My mum wasn't happy that her perfect little daughter was in love with a woman. Maybe the fact that this woman was almost twice as old as me made it even worse. But despite all of these things, shouldn't the most important thing for a mother, especially after what I had been through, be to be glad that her daughter made it out alive against all odds? She seemed to acknowledge that, though. A few times, when she was standing by my bed with my dad and I pretended to sleep, I heard her talk about how lucky she was to see me alive. So what was it then? And why did Federica not show up to see me?

Slowly, but surely I figured that there was something else behind it. As I said, I was really slow, but I eventually got it. The thing was simple, and I wondered why I hadn't gotten there earlier. It was also most likely to be the reason why Federica didn't come to see me. Apart from the fact that she probably felt ashamed of being loved that much by a little girl half her age. But no – the big reason was: I was a killer. I had killed and let die during the show. I had let bad things happen to strangers and even friends, and I had made them happen. The more I thought about it, the clearer the madness of my actions became for me. I could have just dropped out. I had been free to leave the competition at any time, for the price of Federica's life. It was not a very high price in hindsight, given that she had never loved me back or even been the person I had taken her for. Especially when I weighed it against my friends' lives and the lives of all my competitors who had just been as innocent as I had been before being forced to enter the battle. So, to sum it all up, I was a killer who had caused people's deaths for NOTHING!

And after I had realised that I had not only ceased to accept myself but also taken various attempts to get over Federica, a woman who did not deserve my love, after all. It had been a long, hard and frustrating struggle full over seemingly unpassable obstacles, but during the last year, I had made huge advances with the help of my therapist. Ron had found him for me. The shrink was super annoying, and I felt super uncomfortable and exposed when I let him dig in my unworthy and meaningless little feelings, but at least seeing him seemed to help me! I would have never expected that. I knew how much I owed Ron. Without knowing that, I would have never agreed to speak at this silly conference tonight. I had done it for him, not for myself. It just seemed so important to him that I couldn't turn it down, although it had been a struggle for him to convince me.


End file.
